Anthropic, an artificial intelligence (AI) startup with Amazon's financial support, declared on Monday, May 13, that it would begin expanding the operations of its generative AI assistant Claude in Europe on Tuesday, May 14.
Claude will be available to everyone across the continent on both the web and an Apple-supported app.
Anthropic's Funding Plans
CNBC reported that Claude Pro, the paid subscription-based version of the AI assistant, would be available to users wishing to access all of its models, including its latest and most advanced one, Calaude 3 Opus.
On Tuesday, Anthropic co-founder and CEO Dario Amodei said that the company has designed Claude "with a strong commitment to accuracy, security, and privacy."
Earlier this month, VCPost reported that Anthropic also launched its corporate assistant subscription plan, Claude Team, starting at EUR 28 ($30) per month before value-added tax (VAT).
The company further claimed that Claude could fluently communicate in several European languages, including French, German, Italian, Spanish, and English.
Anthropic rose in prominence due to the financial backing of the Jeff Bezos-founded company Amazon. Amazon announced a $2.75 billion investment in the startup last March, leading Anthropic's latest corporate funding round, which reached $4 billion.
TechCrunch also cited Anthropic co-founder and president Daniela Amodei (Dario's sister) when she confirmed, without elaborating further, that expanding its Claude AI assistant to Europe was also a way of raising more funds.
The company has received almost $8 billion in funding and reached the Series D funding round. Other participants in previous funding rounds include Google, Salesforce, SAP, and Zoom.
Alameda and FTX, on the other hand, recently announced plans to sell off its previous shares with Anthropic at an increased value of $884 million in the aftermath of the downfall and conviction of Sam Bankman-Fried.
Meanwhile, multiple sources close to Mistral, one of Anthropic's direct competitors, anonymously told TechCrunch that the company was also in the process of speaking with investors to raise nearly $600 million at a $6 billion valuation, with Softbank being projected as one of the possible backers.
READ NEXT : Amazon-Backed AI Startup Launches New Features to Claude Chatbot, Rivaling With OpenAI's ChatGPT
Anthropic Survivability vs. EU's Strict AI Laws
Earlier this year, the European Parliament, the EU's legislative arm, passed the AI Act, the world's first major set of regulations governing the technology.
The provisions passed include identifying and applying rules based on the risk levels AI could pose, from low, medium, high, and unacceptable.
Claude is already available for free on both the web and mobile in the United Kingdom, a non-EU nation. But Monday's announcement expanded the assistant's reach across the rest of the continent, including non-EU countries like Norway, Switzerland, and Iceland.
However, Amazon's massive support for the AI startup also attracted concerns from some regulators, including some British ones in particular, who said that Anthropic could merge with or be outrightly acquired by Amazon.
In response, Amazon said its partnership with Anthropic was a limited corporate investment, not a merger.
On the other hand, Microsoft denied that its deals with Anthropic's main competitors, OpenAI and Mistral, as well as its hiring from Inflection, were ipso facto merging.
Another concern is that some companies are still very cautious about adopting AI into their workforce. However, AI Singapore innovation director Laurence Liew recently stated that the responsible and proper use of AI among workers could be the balance needed to convince corporate executives to consider incorporating the technology into their firms.
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